A university’s mission in today’s economic performance-driven model of higher education is to assure quality learning and teaching contexts which produce the work-ready graduates demanded by employers. In this context strengthening the links between assessment and graduate qualities through authentic assessment activities has become a priority in many institutions. Project-based assessment, which is meaningful and related to real-life applications, is an established practice in art and design schools.
The question of interest for design educators in today’s quality-focused context is how to ensure this authentic assessment practice is effective in meeting the needs of the student, the teacher, the university and the profession. To be effective in the design context authentic assessment must prepare students to give and receive feedback. While most design educators are familiar with the broad parameters defining effective feedback the application of these parameters in particular learning contexts is not as well articulated.
This paper reports an action-orientated process in which students, a design lecturer and her colleagues collaborated to develop guidelines, and examples of effective verbal feedback practice, in a design critique context in a final year graphic design subject. Outcomes for the students and the teacher included shared understandings about effective feedback in the designer-client context. As graduates these students will enter their profession with a better understanding of the practice of effective feedback